Page 35 of Girl, Sought

‘Have you? I don’t remember seeing it.’

‘It's here, I know it's here.’ She pawed through the chaos, chasing that elusive thread. ‘I just read it, I swear.’

But the connection she sought wasn't buried in this paper graveyard. Her hands moved to her laptop, clicking through tabs with the precision of muscle memory. Medical museum fire. Insurance fraud. Something about that article had stuck in her brain like a burr, waiting for the right moment to snag on something important.

The tab was still there, buried amid a dozen others. She clicked it, and there it was, laid out in black and white.

‘Here, read this.’

Luca leaned in. ‘Historic Chesapeake medical museum owner convicted of insurance fraud. What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Keep reading.’

‘St. Andrews Museum of Medical History, clear case of arson, financial woes, blah blah. What am I looking for here?’

‘Last paragraph.’ Ella saved him time and read it aloud herself. ‘It's a tragic end to a vital piece of medical history,’ said Miss Blackburn, owner of the Curated Value Group.’

‘Oh, snap. Curated Value Group. Blackburn?’ Luca's expression shifted from confusion to revelation in the space of a heartbeat. He dove into his own stack of papers on his desk.

‘Yeah. I’m guessing they’re an appraisal group. Appraising a dead man’s collectionandbeing suspiciously close to a museum fire? Doesn’t that-‘

‘Hold up,’ interrupted Luca, ‘there’s something else.’

‘Is there?’

Luca emerged, holding a sheet of paper like it was a winning lottery ticket. 'Eleanor Calloway's credit card statement. She made a payment last month to a V. Blackburn. Five grand.'

The evidence lay before them in sterile black and white: a five-thousand-dollar payment to Vanessa Blackburn, dated just weeks before Eleanor's death. The kind of detail that could look innocent until you held it up to the right light.

Ella's mind raced ahead, connecting dots faster than she could process them. Two victims with no obvious overlap - except maybe there was. Both had used the same appraisal service. Both had trusted this company to put a value on their precious collections. Both had presumably let strangers – or the same stranger – into their private sanctums and shown them their obsessions.

‘The Curated Value Group,’ she said slowly. ‘They’d have access to everything. Client lists. Collection details. Values. Storage locations.’

‘Perfect hunting ground for someone looking to target collectors.’ Luca's voice had dropped to a near-whisper, like he was afraid speaking too loud might scare away their breakthrough.

‘And the perfect cover for getting close to them. What better way to learn about rare collections than through a legitimate business? You gain their trust, learn their routines, catalog their precious things.’

The implications spun out like ripples in a bloody pond. If the Curated Value Group was the nexus point between their victims, what else might they know? How many other collectors in their database might be potential targets? And most importantly - had their killer found his victims through their connection to the company?

‘Come on, Hawkins. We need to find out everything about this group – and then pay them a visit.’

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The lock took longer than it should have. Not because it was complicated - just a basic deadbolt that any halfway decent burglar could pop in thirty seconds. But his hands kept shaking, and the pick kept slipping, and sweat made the tools feel greasy in his gloved fingers.

Performance anxiety. Even after Eleanor and Alfred, the anticipation still got to him.

It was amazing what you could learn about locks when you worked the job he did. Every collection that crossed his desk came with a security assessment, with notes about alarm systems and door hardware and the particular habits of owners who thought their precious things were safe behind Schlage deadbolts and four-digit alarm codes.

Finally, the cylinder turned with a soft click. He eased the door open, listening for any sound that meant his research had been wrong. But the house sat empty and quiet, just like he knew it would be. Just like the owner's schedule indicated.

Everything in this house would be maintained to museum standards, every surface polished to a fault. That's how they all lived, these people who built their identities around ownership. Like Eleanor with her climate-controlled doll room. Like Alfred with his carefully calibrated bug boxes.

Those records that crossed his desk were a goldmine if you knew how to read them. Not just the dry facts about collection values and insurance requirements, but the stories between the lines. The way some collectors talked about their pieces revealed everything about who they were. Or weren't.

The house smelled of furniture polish and old paper and that particular desperation that came from trying to hold onto pieces of the past. He knew the layout by heart - had memorized it from the assessment photos that crossed desk. Living room to the right, study to the left, and straight ahead - the collection room. Their holy of holies.

He'd chosen this one carefully. Not just for the value of his collection - though that was impressive enough to warrant a six-figure insurance rider - but for what those carefully curated pieces said about their owner. You could tell a lot about someone by what they thought was worth preserving.

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